Pokemon GO servers down, hackers possibly responsible
Hundreds of people who planned on taking long walks to play Pokemon GO today found that Niantic’s servers were down once again.
Earlier today, Pokemon GO was finally released in Europe on both iPhone and Android devices. Just like when the game was released in North America, Niantic servers suffered from the strain of a huge new influx of players.
#PokemonGO players, the servers are down likely due to the latest release in 26 countries. We will post an update when they are back online.
— Pokémon GO News (@PokemonGoNews) July 16, 2016
However, now there is reason to believe that Pokemon GO‘s servers are down due to an entirely different reason: hackers.
SERVER UPDATE: According to @Independent, #PokemonGO servers have been taken down in a DDOS attack. We will update when we have more info.
— Pokémon GO News (@PokemonGoNews) July 16, 2016
DDOS stands for “distributed denial-of-service,” and it occurs when multiple systems are used to target another system. Essentially, a group can crash a server by flooding it with more requests than it can handle.
According to the Independent, a collective called PoodleCorp has taken responsibility for the attack with one of its members tweeting the following:
While the claim has yet to be verified, the news has spread and people have understandably become upset.
Why would someone hack the #PokemonGO servers and make the game go down? I don't get it and I really want to catch them all! #😫 #whyyy
— Rachel Mc (@RachelAnders66) July 16, 2016
No word yet on when the servers will go back up.
For more gaming coverage, please visit our hub page.